You are all over the place with questions: How do you access futures markets - you need to select a broker, I recommend an online one, many traders here use IB (interactive brokers), globalfutures is another one to look at. You will need to open an account and learn how to place orders, I am sure you can do it - probably similar to FOREX, though I don't know forex. As far as the amount of money needed, it depends on your broker. You will need a small fortune to make a bigger one. I've seen some brokers let you open an account with 2K, but for the size of the contracts that you want to trade, trading one lots I'd say 5-10K would be much more preferable. Its a tricky tricky thing the futures markets, you will need to practice trade and see how it goes. Soybeans are all over the place, you might want to start with the mini size bean contract, with that 2K is fine. Gold is sluggish - electronic CBOT gold is the only way to go, forget the stupid COMEX. Best of luck. COntact me if you want more info or have more questions.

For corn the price is quoted per bushel but the contract is 5000 bushels (you cant trade by the bushel, only by 5000 bushels) , so multiply the price by 5000 to get the value of the contract. To hold a contact you need to put a margin up front - its a certain amount of $ for Corn I think its 500 or so.

Corn symbol is C , followed by a month code, the the last digit of the year, this 2005 Sept Corn is CU5. 2005 Dec Corn is CZ5.

Corn is different in that the day time trading is done non electronic, night time is electronic. Big difference in brokers comm. Non electronic with all fees 18$ or so, electronic is about 8$.

Also the CBOT has a smaller corn contract - the mini corn is 1000 Bushels. This might be the place to start, since the contract is so small, the smallest of all futures contracts I believe. But youwill have to decide that.